Associated Press: Rhetoric Shouldn't Trump Substance in Presidential Race, Says Biden
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Associated Press: Rhetoric Shouldn't Trump Substance in Presidential Race, Says Biden
By Philip Elliott
Sen. Joe Biden said Saturday the most important question voters should ask would-be presidents isn't what they would do in Iraq today, but how they would deal with the consequences tomorrow.
"Everybody in both parties comes up with ideas about Iraq," the Democratic presidential hopeful told reporters between campaign stops. "None of them has asked and answered the fundamental second question that must be answered: Then what?"
Biden criticized other candidates who critique the war in Iraq and U.S. foreign policy, but ignore the next steps.
"If you have a commander in chief, Democrat or Republican, who doesn't know more than their advisers, if you have a commander in chief who doesn't know what he or she wishes do to and how they'll to do it, you're going to find yourself, within four to six years, a nuclearized Korean peninsula, Japan a nuclear power, China going from 18 to 888 nuclear ICBMs," the Delaware senator told a house party of about 35 people. "You're going to watch the proliferation that's going to go to India. I guarantee you'll see Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Argentina all developing nuclear weapons."
Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is viewed as a top policy mind in his party. But lackluster fundraising -- he reported receipts of almost $4 million, about half of which came from his Senate campaign account -- has kept him out of the high-chatter circles.
Biden, on his third trip to the state since announcing his presidential ambitions, told reporters that he's not daunted by others' bank tallies.
"I don't know a single instance where the winner of the primary in New Hampshire was based on money," Biden said. "Nobody asks, 'Biden, how much money do you have?' It's about how are you going to end this war."
Biden voted in 2002 to authorize military action in Iraq but has become a leading critic of the war since then. He has advocated a plan to divide the country along ethnic lines, with a central government responsible for border security and allocation of oil resources.
"I guarantee you: ideas, experience and a track record trump money," Biden said.
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